The Valabh Committee, named after its Chair Arthur Valabh, was a New Zealand government appointed committee tasked with reviewing various aspects of the income tax system in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Although originally convened to review proposals for a capital gains tax, the Committee ended up making a number of recommendations for fundamental reform of the scheme and structure of the New Zealand tax legislation, most of which [1] were implemented.
The committee had a lasting impact on the direction of tax reform, including the style and drafting of the income tax legislation, as well as numerous specific recommendations for the tax treatment of, for example, depreciation and partnerships.
The formal name of the Valabh Committee was the “Consultative Committee on the Taxation of Income from Capital”. [2] The Committee comprised:
It was supported by a secretary (Greg Cole) as well as by officials from both the Inland Revenue Department and the Treasury.
The 1980s were a period of considerable economic and tax reform in New Zealand. New Zealand had never had a formal capital gains tax system (unlike virtually every other OECD nation. The government was considering implementing a capital gains tax and issued a consultative document [2] as part of the (then) process of tax reform. [3]
The Committee appointed to review submissions, in response to the Consultative Document, instead reported to government that it did not consider the state of the tax system at that time sufficiently robust enough to support additional reform of this nature. The government accepted this recommendation and re-tasked the committee to advise it on the structural reforms required.
The Committee subsequently published 5 discussion papers: [3]
In addition the Committee separately reported to government on the reform of the tax depreciation rules. [6]
The thrust of the Core Provisions and Key Reforms Papers was to ensure that the income tax legislation was appropriately structured and ordered to facilitate the understanding of the rules as well as to allow for further reform to be implemented effectively.
This work lead directly to the Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976 and the complete rewrite of the legislation. [7] [8]
The proposals made in the Company Distribution Paper led to a revised definition of what constituted a dividend under New Zealand tax law as well as the introduction of a small company taxation regime (“qualifying company” regime). [9]
The committee's recommendations resulted in a new tax depreciation regime introduced in 1993. [9]
The government accepted the committee's recommendation for a significantly more liberal regime for the deduction of interest for tax purposes. [10]
Recommendations for the reform of the tax treatment of partnerships was finally implemented by government in 2007 [11] [12]
Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdictions that facilitate reduced taxes. Tax avoidance should not be confused with tax evasion, which is illegal. Both tax evasion and tax avoidance can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they describe a range of activities that intend to subvert a state's tax system.
A tax file number (TFN) is a unique identifier issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to each taxpaying entity—an individual, company, superannuation fund, partnership, or trust. Not all individuals have a TFN, and a business has both a TFN and an Australian Business Number (ABN). If a business earns income as part of carrying on its business, it may quote its ABN instead of its TFN.
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 was a United States federal tax law signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Its largest impact was creating the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was intended to tax high-income earners who had previously avoided incurring tax liability due to various exemptions and deductions.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a value-added tax or consumption tax for goods and services consumed in New Zealand.
Taxes in New Zealand are collected at a national level by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) on behalf of the Government of New Zealand. National taxes are levied on personal and business income, and on the supply of goods and services. Capital gains tax applies in limited situations, such as the sale of some rental properties within 10 years of purchase. Some "gains" such as profits on the sale of patent rights are deemed to be income – income tax does apply to property transactions in certain circumstances, particularly speculation. There are currently no land taxes, but local property taxes (rates) are managed and collected by local authorities. Some goods and services carry a specific tax, referred to as an excise or a duty, such as alcohol excise or gaming duty. These are collected by a range of government agencies such as the New Zealand Customs Service. There is no social security (payroll) tax.
The Finance Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It prescribes changes to Excise Duties, Value Added Tax, Income Tax, Corporation Tax, and Capital Gains Tax. It enacts the 2004 Budget speech made by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Inland Revenue or Inland Revenue Department is the public service department of New Zealand charged with advising the government on tax policy, collecting and disbursing payments for social support programmes, and collecting tax.
Under Article 108 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, the taxation system in Hong Kong is independent of, and different from, the taxation system in mainland China. In addition, under Article 106 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, Hong Kong has independent public finance, and no tax revenue is handed over to the Central Government in China. The taxation system in Hong Kong is generally considered to be one of the simplest, most transparent and straightforward systems in the world. Taxes are collected through the Inland Revenue Department (IRD).
The Third Labour Government of New Zealand was the government of New Zealand from 1972 to 1975. During its time in office, it carried out a wide range of reforms in areas such as overseas trade, farming, public works, energy generation, local government, health, the arts, sport and recreation, regional development, environmental protection, education, housing, and social welfare. Māori also benefited from revisions to the laws relating to land, together with a significant increase in a Māori and Island Affairs building programme. In addition, the government encouraged biculturalism and a sense of New Zealand identity. However, the government damaged relations between Pākehā and Pasifika New Zealanders by instituting the Dawn Raids on alleged overstayers from the Pacific Islands; the raids have been described as "the most blatantly racist attack on Pacific peoples by the New Zealand government in New Zealand’s history". The government lasted for one term before being defeated a year after the death of its popular leader, Norman Kirk.
Sir Ivor Lloyd Morgan Richardson was an eminent New Zealand and Commonwealth jurist and legal writer and a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976 was a committee appointed by the New Zealand government to advise on the appropriate reorganisation of the income tax legislation. The Working Party was set up in 1993 as a result of recommendations made by the Valabh Committee set up to review the overall income tax system. The Working Party comprised Arthur Valabh (Chair), Dame Margaret Bazley, and Sir Kenneth Keith.
Budget Note 66 (BN66) is the mechanism by which the UK government introduced clause 55 of the Finance Bill 2008, which would later become Section 58 of the Finance Act 2008. This specifically targeted tax planning and tax avoidance schemes that made use of offshore trusts and double taxation treaties to reduce the tax paid by the scheme's users which had previously been legal. This arrangement was originally used by property developers but was then heavily marketed to the freelance community after the introduction of intermediaries legislation known as IR35, because it appeared to offer more certainty concerning tax liabilities than would be the case if running a limited company.
The Tax Institute, formerly the Taxation Institute of Australia, is a member-based association of tax professionals in Australia. Members include accountants, lawyers and academics.
The Social Security Act 1938 is a New Zealand Act of Parliament concerning unemployment insurance which established New Zealand as a welfare state. This act is important in the history of social welfare, as it established the first ever social security system in the world.
A patent box is a special very low corporate tax regime used by several countries to incentivise research and development by taxing patent revenues differently from other commercial revenues. It is also known as intellectual property box regime, innovation box or IP box. Patent boxes have also been used as base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools, to avoid corporate taxes.
Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to "shift" profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions or no-tax locations where there is little or no economic activity, thus "eroding" the "tax-base" of the higher-tax jurisdictions using deductible payments such as interest or royalties. For the government, the tax base is a company's income or profit. Tax is levied as a percentage on this income/profit. When that income / profit is transferred to another country or tax haven, the tax base is eroded and the company does not pay taxes to the country that is generating the income. As a result, tax revenues are reduced and the government is detained. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) define BEPS strategies as "exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules". While some of the tactics are illegal, the majority are not. Because businesses that operate across borders can utilize BEPS to obtain a competitive edge over domestic businesses, it affects the righteousness and integrity of tax systems. Furthermore, it lessens deliberate compliance, when taxpayers notice multinationals legally avoiding corporate income taxes. Because developing nations rely more heavily on corporate income tax, they are disproportionately affected by BEPS.
The Tax Attractiveness Index (T.A.X.) indicates the attractiveness of a country's tax environment and the possibilities of tax planning for companies. The T.A.X. is constructed for 100 countries worldwide starting from 2005 on. The index covers 20 equally weighted components of real-world tax systems which are relevant for corporate location decisions. The index ranges between zero and one. The more the index values approaches one, the more attractive is the tax environment of a certain country from a corporate perspective. The 100 countries include 41 European countries, 19 American countries, 6 Caribbean countries, 18 countries that are located in Africa & Middle East, and 16 countries that fall into the Asia-Pacific region.
Tax pooling allows New Zealand taxpayers to pool their provisional tax payments together in an account held by a registered tax pooling intermediary at Inland Revenue (IRD) so that underpayments by some can be offset by overpayments of others. Taxpayers receive/pay an interest rate that is higher/lower than IRD's rates if they overpay/underpay provisional tax. Intermediaries operate under legislation set out in the Income Tax Act 2007 and Tax Administration Act 1994.
The Tax Working Group is an advisory body that was created by the New Zealand Government in late 2017 to investigate ways of reforming New Zealand's taxation system and making it "fairer." Some key areas under its purview include the Goods and Services Tax and alleviating the housing market. The Working Group is headed by former Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen.
Taxation in Sri Lanka mainly includes excise duties, value added tax, income tax and tariffs. Tax revenue is a primary constituent of the government's fiscal policy. The Government of Sri Lanka imposes taxes mainly of two types in the forms of direct taxes and indirect taxes. As of 2018 CBSL report, taxes are the most important revenue source for the government, contributing 89% of the revenue. The tax revenue to GDP ratio is just about 11.6 percent as of 2018, which is one of the lowest rates among the upper-middle income earning countries. At present, the government of Sri Lanka also face major challenges regarding the continuous budget deficits where government expenditures have exceeded the government tax revenue.